“It’s a relationship….” These are the words that many of the people that I know say just to say them. This is what they have been taught to believe and answer but it’s not always real for them. It’s not always been real for me. Over the past couple years, it has become more real and I was reminded of how true these words are to me.
While I have become someone who enjoys putting on my best, getting all dolled up, and going to church on Sunday, that’s not where this relationship begins or ends for me. I used to be the kid who hated to put on the dress on Sunday morning and couldn’t understand why we had to go to church twice on Sundays.
As we celebrate Pentecost today, I was reminded that this is more than going to church on Sunday. It’s got to be about being a witness to those around me, especially those who don’t share the same belief in Jesus that I do.
Again, I am the one who is learning to worship Jesus in new and different ways, that I had honestly once thought strange. To be someone who feels the urge to get up and run or dance in the middle of praise and worship. Or even to be someone who lets out a shout or has my own prayer language. These were all things that I once thought strange and impossible. But this church that I attend and the people that I met, encouraged me to take God outside this box that I had put him in.
While there is something truly beautiful and amazing that happens when you really open yourself up to the Lord and being filled with the Holy Ghost, I don’t want it to be confined to my experiences inside the church or just with the church body. I want this to be a daily testimony as I interact with believer and non-believers alike. My relationship with Jesus is not limited to a building or only able to come out with a certain group of people.
While there is an overwhelming presence and power that comes when we gather as a church body, my encounters are not limited to these times. I have deeper moments of connection and revelation when it’s me and Jesus in my closet or in my car. Honestly, sometimes too it’s been in the middle of the work day or in a large crowded city. I’m learning to be open to seeing him in everything.
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So while I appreciate the significance of a church building, holding corporate worship, and having a pastor to preside over the body, I don’t want these things to ever take the place of my relationship with Jesus, whom meets me anywhere and will take my praise however, and wherever.
I think every professing Christian would benefit from attending services at different denominations to grow their own relationship and see how to help others see the beauty and blessing of communion with Christ. While we each have our own relationship with Jesus, there is also the need to meet together to help encourage one another. I just don’t want to confine myself to one type of way of doing things. I want to keep growing in my relationship and experiencing God in new ways, in turn then helping others to want the same thing.
Have a wonderful Sunday!
Shalom!
~Lynn